Two Percent with Michael Easter
Build Better Habits & Break the Food-Addiction Cycle | Melissa Urban, Whole 30 Founder
21 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What parallels does Melissa Urban draw between food addiction and drug addiction?
on the look back at it podcast 1979 that was a big moment for me 84 was big to me i'm sam jay and i'm alex english each episode we pick a year unpack what went down and try to make sense of how we survived it with our friends fellow comedians and favorite authors like mark lamont hill on the 80s 84 was a wild i mean it was a wild year i don't think there's a more important year for black people
Listen to Look Back at It on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host, Kier Gaines.
This space is about Black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing.
How many men... carry a suit of armor. It signals to the world that you not to be played with. And just because you have the capability, that does not mean that you need to.
Listen to Learn the Hard Way on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Chapter 2: How did Melissa Urban's past experiences shape her approach to health and wellness?
In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct?
I doctored the test once. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the question 'What would a healthy person do?' in habit change?
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As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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That's a touchy subject right now.
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Chapter 4: What are the principles behind the Whole30 elimination diet?
Oh, you touched the rail. People make it. You touched the rail. I know. People make it their whole personality, okay? That's not my business. You can white knuckle your way through any elimination diet. You can put your blinders on and just go on willpower alone and get through it and have nothing change at the end of it. That's a great answer.
The only thing I did the first time I got out of rehab was I stopped using drugs.
Chapter 5: How has Melissa Urban's perspective on seed oils changed in 2024?
The second time I recognized that I was going to have to change every single thing about my life if I wanted to maintain my recovery. So yes, there are best best practices. And also I recognize that there are so many barriers to entry for people to be healthy. Welcome to 2%. I'm your host, Michael Easter.
If you are joining us for the first time, as a reminder, this is a twice-weekly podcast where we get into how doing hard things can improve your life. My background is that I am a journalist. I've been a journalist for about 20 years covering health, wellness, and I travel into some of the most remote, extreme places on earth in order to get you information that can help you live better.
And this podcast, it grew out of my popular 2% sub stack where we've built an amazing community. And we're hoping to bring all the lessons we've learned in that through all of my research over to your video feeds and your audio feeds.
Chapter 6: Why is emotional awareness important in breaking food addiction?
And today, we have a really good episode. We're talking to Melissa Urban. She is the founder of Whole30.com. Now, if you have ever been in a grocery store in the last, say, 10 years, you have probably encountered Whole30. Their logo is on all sorts of different health foods. She's built a massive community of people around this Whole30 movement. And the reason why I wanted to talk to her...
is that she really fundamentally understands behavior change. In building the Whole30 community, she has literally millions of data points that shows what actually helps people change their habits. Yes, she typically looks at it through the lens of food, but she's really expanded her lens and thought about all different ways to change your life in ways that work and that you can use now.
Chapter 7: What role does community play in the success of the Whole30 program?
Not to mention, Melissa is amazing because she's really gone through some challenging things in life, and she's used them as leverage to build something truly amazing. So with all that said, here's my conversation with Melissa. Well, I'm here with Melissa Urban, one of my favorite people in the universe. So we met, what was it, like five years ago. I was a first-time author and I had this book.
I didn't know if anyone would like it. And I sent it to you and I said, would you read this and would you maybe blurb it? I'm, you know, begging you. You did.
Chapter 8: How does Melissa Urban define success beyond weight loss?
And I was shocked. I was like, I love this person already. And you shared it with your community. And it absolutely helped launch that book, which was just so amazing. And you've built this unbelievable Whole30 community, which millions of people have gone through the Whole30. It's changed a lot of lives. And you've learned a ton along the way.
And so I am here to try and steal some of that wisdom from you for this show. I feel like that's the same reason I'm here, to steal your wisdom. We did meet. I was one of the earliest readers of The Comfort Crisis. I have never said yes to a blurb so quickly, and I am very conscientious about what I choose to blurb. And that book literally changed my life.
It's probably the book I recommend the most to people. So I feel the same. Amazing. Well, this is going to be awesome. So you've had some traumatic experiences in your past. How did those affect you moving forward, both in a bad way and also in a good way? And what did you learn from those experiences? Yeah. Yeah.
When I was 16, I was sexually abused by someone in my family and I didn't tell anyone for a while. And then when I did, as happens so often, I was maybe not believed or maybe made to feel like it was my fault. I didn't know how to handle it. I used drugs for five years as kind of an escape. And then thankfully, you know, through rehab and a lot of therapy was able to process that.
It obviously changed my life. And I think A lot of people will sometimes say, well, are you grateful for your trauma because it built you into the person that you are today? And it's not the trauma. It is the resilience that I credit. It's the fact that, first of all, I had tons of privilege and tons of support going through it, right? I had a family who was supporting me.
I had resources and health insurance and a good therapist, but... I think it was the process of accepting what happened and turning it into, I think, a piece of me. It's not the piece of me. It's not the biggest thing in my life, but it's always something that is there. And when I think back to that younger Melissa who was doing the best that she could and
Constantly reminding myself that I'm so proud of myself for getting us through that really difficult situation and having so much grace for myself for not knowing how to handle it and just doing my absolute best. Those are the things I think of the most when I think back on it now. When did you realize you had a problem with heroin? Was there an aha moment? Did it develop slowly over time?
And then how did you start to pull yourself out of that? Yeah. You know, I used drugs in the beginning as an escape. I had been looking for ways to take me out of this experience and my life and drugs were the thing. I tried other things. They didn't work. Drugs was it. But then over time, I started to realize that the drugs were now the thing.
I had to use them every single day to modulate my emotion and my energy and I knew I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. Other people in my life started noticing that they had become a problem. I was very functional for a very long time. And I had like a moment. I was sitting on my couch. I had just been paid.
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